SPOTLIGHT grew from player feedback: clearer numbers, more control over training and a Live 2D that responds to what is happening in the round.
Your choices shape your career
Build your player with clearer training choices. Balance focus, coaching and recovery as you prepare for the next match.
Competition that reflects where you play
Follow your place in the current-season rankings. Compare your performances, weigh contract offers and keep your career moving towards bigger competitions.
Two maps and a changing season
Switchyard and Foundry join the pool after the community vote. Each season brings three league maps, four additional tournament maps and two resting maps. Existing careers receive the new maps from the next season. Opponents compare their preparation with yours during the veto.
Inspect Foundry and Switchyard in the map explorer.
Follow the entire tournament
Open an active bracket from Next Match, inspect human and AI match details, then see the champion, finalist, MVP and EVP together at the end. Season awards and the Hall of Fame have a new ceremony and gallery, with saved records preserved.
A smarter Live 2D
Follow more responsive attacks, rotations and duels. The tactical view brings every bombsite entry, retake and clutch into focus.
New art and sound
Painted artwork connects season openings, tournament arenas, maps and match screens. Eight maps receive new ambient sound. Sandstorm's ambient sound will follow in a later update.
A closer look at your arsenal
The weapon collection gains 160 skins, ten per weapon, with previews, provenance and drop probabilities. Existing collections and equipped skins are converted automatically.
Thank you for playing, voting and sending reports. Keep the feedback coming on Discord.
THE COMPLETE UPDATE
Full patch notes
Changes in 1.4, grouped by area.
TOURNAMENTS6 notes
- Switchyard and Foundry arrive, the two maps chosen by the community, each with four attacking and three defending tactics, painted thumbnails and its own ambience. The pool changes every season: three league maps, four more for tournaments (BO3s are played over seven) and two left out. In careers already underway they enter from the next season. The No Excuses achievement now includes them.
- In careers already underway, Map Knowledge on Switchyard and Foundry starts at the same level as the other maps, for every player and team. Before, it started lower and opposing teams almost always discarded them in the veto.
- In the map veto, opposing teams now compare their preparation with yours: they ban the map where they are furthest behind and pick the one where their edge is largest, instead of looking only at their own numbers.
- Clutch Score now prioritizes the level of competitions actually played: dominating a lower tier cannot outweigh playing in the tier above. High-level tournaments count in proportion to rounds played. The current ranking updates in existing saves too; archived rankings remain unchanged.
- While you're still in, the tournament bracket opens from the Next Match card: results of the rounds played, your next match and the pairings still to be decided. Every finished match shows the score, maps, avatars and frags of both teams, AI matches included. The end-of-tournament screen is rebuilt: champion, score and finalist in one band, MVP and EVP side by side, and a bracket with team crests.
- The new Circuit player ranking compares nine current-season stats by league. In existing careers, one map played after the update is enough to enter the current-season ranking. Team standings now show OVR too. The top five and your position stay visible, with a button to return to your league.
LIVE 2D4 notes
- Every stat has its moment in the Live 2D. Clutch matters much more when you're last alive, outnumbered or hurt; Teamplay makes the trade after a teammate's death faster and sharper, and strengthens crossfires. At 70 nothing changes: only the gap between strong and weak players grows. Form, map knowledge, setup, boosts, stress and traits now reach the Live too, and the IGL's guidance and Support flashes now work.
- Duels now show the shots that were really fired, misses included, and a fight ends when the sequence of shots says so, at any speed and even when paused. Headshots on a helmet work as in CS: the AK-47 kills in one shot, the M4A4 doesn't, and every other weapon follows its penetration. In an AK-47 against M4A4 duel aim matters again, not just the fire rate.
- In the Live 2D players who walk under a roof become semi-transparent, with a gradual fade; name, health and bomb always stay readable. It covers buildings and covered passages on seven maps.
- New ambient sound for Sphinx, Summit, Viaduct, Caldera, Oasis, Reactor, Switchyard and Foundry: wind and curtains, a city and a helicopter, rain and thunder, a fountain and sparrows, distant explosions, an unstable power plant, trains and machinery. Sounds change order and timing every match, carry on between rounds and follow pause and the Ambient volume.
LIVE AI5 notes
- Defending CTs no longer stare at a fixed point: they switch their aim between the lines the Ts can come from and make small side steps while holding their spot. When a site needs help, or a teammate falls, they take the shortest safe route, rotate only on real information and head back home once the site calms down.
- In about one attacking round in three the Ts split: two pressure the other site with utility and one tries to get in; if he holds, the whole team rotates there, otherwise the main plan goes ahead. After the plant the Ts run to their positions and whoever holds still defends his angle better; on Switchyard and Foundry the positions are spread around the site, with a view of the defuse.
- A player left alone uses Clutch to look for nearby cover against the threats no teammate is watching, even between one duel and the next; he stays vulnerable while moving and keeps to routes and objectives. In one-against-many fights Clutch is weighed against the enemies' Teamplay and Game Sense, and every exchange uses the health he really has at that moment.
- Cleaner movement near walls: arriving on waypoints, escaping molotovs, small steps in holds and the sidestep before a fight now check the space the body takes, not only the path. Players no longer get stuck in wall corners.
- Smarter buys in the Live 2D, the recommended one included. Rich players buy full even when the team saves. An extra pistol only if everything can be bought back after a loss; on an eco the vest comes first. The AWPer no longer ecoes while the team buys: AWP as soon as he can afford the gun, vest later, otherwise he keeps his weapon or takes a rifle, and saves only after a round without the AWP.
BALANCE2 notes
- Simulated matches and Simulate the rest were calibrated on hundreds of Live matches: kills per round, assists, ADR and KAST now look like what you see when you watch. Both use the same distribution, with setup, boosts, stress, Map IQ and traits, without counting team bonuses twice. Rounds already played are kept, and simulated tournament scoreboards show the recorded stats.
- Every simulated map has its own match day: even a clear favourite can lose. The displayed odds account for it. The post-match screen describes the team’s performance; analysis compares expected round chances, today’s chances and rounds actually won. The next-match card accounts for the maps in the pool.
CAREER11 notes
- Choose your starting stats before the role briefing: distribute 245 points, with each attribute between 44 and 54, a recommended role preset and explanatory tooltips. Icons and colors match Training Focus. This applies to new careers only; potential remains independent.
- Training Focus is redesigned: choose load, focus and coaches. A slider adjusts paid hours from 60% to 150%, updating cost, growth and fatigue immediately. Better coaches offer more growth and consistency. Save three plans or use the coaches’ plan, which replaces Career Advisor optimization. Focus sliders are independent: freed points stay available until you assign them. New careers start with Base coaches.
- Reaching OVR 90 is more achievable. Potential has a higher distribution (median 93, a 99 comes up in one career in twenty) and the main player slows down less near their limit: with normal commitment 90 arrives around 27-28. It also applies to careers in progress: anyone not yet in the decline phase gets their potential recalculated, keeping their position relative to everyone else.
- Even with extreme training and Élite coaches, the final stretch towards your personal ceiling takes maturity: a fully committed career now aims to peak around ages 24–26. Early development stays fast and potential is unchanged. Stats already earned in existing saves are preserved.
- Opponents now receive a single weekly development gain: training, academy development and adaptation after promotion no longer stack. AI players also slow down near their personal ceiling before age 26. Prospects can still earn a starting place; stats already earned are preserved.
- If a five-week block starts with empty weekends, the reminder now appears when you press ADVANCE, before the veto, and no longer blocks the game: apply your coach's plan, which fills the weekends starting from the activities they recommend, open THE WEEK, or continue without a plan and your coach will note it. THE WEEK keeps three personal templates, and the coach's plan becomes the fourth card.
- Injuries arrive: wrist, back, eyes, carpal tunnel and burnout depend on load and fatigue, which the Personal Trainer and Nutritionist help clear. Medical staff warns before serious layoffs; for minor issues you choose whether to play through pain. When hurt, the Dashboard tells you at once: you play for Team B with load on Rest and return as a starter once healed. Stress is also recovered in Team B, without forfeits.
- Other players get injured too. Each has their own fragility and their own training style, which decides how fast they grow: whoever is out leaves their spot to a substitute, and you see it in your team's log.
- The engine now measures each player's real damage and KAST, simulated matches included. Match rating and Clutch Score reward the damage and useful rounds that kills alone don't show, and the season Clutch Score now also counts assists.
- Moving up a tier no longer starts a spiral with no way out. The win probability shown before a match now matches the real one. Your end-of-match grade accounts for the opponent's strength: losing to a much stronger team weighs far less on your form. The club evaluation judges you against your team's expectations, and during a losing streak the Career Advisor explains how to recover.
- Staff now shows each professional's actual effect at their current level, or at level one if not yet hired. The Career Advisor sorts its suggestions by urgency: first what you can afford, with restoring worn hardware at the top.
ECONOMY2 notes
- The balance sheet is gathered in the new Economy page, with a Streaming sub-tab and easier numbers to read. Twitch and YouTube change backdrop with your fame, and the sponsor shows its real business.
- Debt now has an end. Instead of loans and the emergency contract there's a single recovery plan: below zero the debt grows 1% a week, housing, car, studio and Brand Academy are paused and your coaches work on Budget. After 10 weeks what you own is sold, with a warning two weeks earlier; if that isn't enough, the rest is taken from your salary with a real penalty in matches.
MARKET3 notes
- Language and nationality now matter more on the market: teams that speak your language and teams from your country approach you more often, without changing the quality of the offers. Offers now also show when the team is from your country.
- Rejecting every offer no longer lets you earn more than your club's proposed renewal: the fallback contract also takes that offer into account, while respecting the league minimum salary.
- After a tier change, your club can propose revised terms even with a valid contract, including lower pay. You can accept or keep your existing deal. Training staff rates change from W1 of the new season, not during the transfer window.
INTERFACE12 notes
- Stats becomes Profile, Training becomes The Week and Tournaments becomes Circuit. C4 detonates at the bomb, shaking the map and sending out a shockwave. Next Match keeps its content, with clearer names and flags and proportionate logos. On rest weeks, the backdrop follows the team’s tier: pub, stadium, VIP concert or luxury spa.
- New painted art across the career: the captain's welcome, a season briefing with arenas and full lineups, maps revealed one at a time and illustrated sponsors. Interviews, creation, pre-match and post-match have new backdrops; Next Match shows a setting tied to your tier. Painted map thumbnails reach profiles, team pages and The Week, and messages show the sender's picture.
- Tournament History has 88 new painted arenas, eight different ones for each type of tournament, seen from outside and matching the city hosting the event.
- Season awards and the main-menu Hall of Fame have a new look: a ceremony with six winners, avatars and flags, a clearer legends gallery and refreshed panels for history, weapons and trophies. The gradual reveal, Seasonal and Legacy careers, saved records and entry into preseason keep their existing behavior.
- New shortcuts: keys 1 to 8 open Dashboard, Profile, The Week, Economy, Lifestyle, Circuit, All Stars and Hall of Fame; Alt+← / Alt+→ go back and forward between sections like the side mouse buttons. They work like clicks: they do nothing where a click couldn't. All controls can now be reassigned in the new Controls tab of Options, with a primary and secondary key, including mouse buttons.
- Confirmation windows, notices and short choices share one clearer style. Economy, Circuit and Hall of Fame open straight away, without an explanation screen on first visit; the preseason tutorial stays. Profiles opened from rankings now have the same width as the player profile. The startup splash uses the same artwork as the main menu.
- Sub-stats and Career Advisor tips open in tidier windows. Ventures has been redesigned: four projects, the rename, and Crypto and team purchase on the side. The end of a career shows the arena after the last match, with legacy, trophies, history and arsenal; the end of the demo uses screenshots to show what awaits in the full game.
- 160 realistic skins, ten per weapon. Every tournament, including All Stars, can award every skin according to prestige, without duplicates. Probabilities are recalculated when a rarity is completed. Existing collections and equipped skins are converted automatically. Weapon Mastery offers previews, filters, provenance and drop probabilities.
- The unread-message reminder shows the title and opens that message directly. Multiple-choice replies show effects below the text, keeping arrows and names together. Titles and senders are also shown for narrative events in older saves.
- Removed unused startup work. Pages prepare their images before appearing, and Live also waits for the map panorama, with a fallback if the file fails to load. Image preload memory is bounded. After a graphics reset, the game tries to redraw its windows without reloading the career.
- The tutorial matches the current interface and coaching-hours slider. The initial invitation and Live explanations have a cleaner design, updated text and accessible buttons. In the first Live match, the scoreboard guide is visible again: completing it resumes play, and the tutorial pause no longer repeats in later rounds.
- Returning to sections you have already opened avoids repeated loading screens. Preloading focuses on the images needed, without filling the cache with other screens. Artificial pauses are removed; new images are still prepared before they appear.
STABILITY & FIXES2 notes
- In French, the assists column of the post-match summary shows the correct label. The weapon skin picker can be used and closed from the keyboard. The week 8 debt notice keeps the bars visible and the pending interview resumes at the next Advance; the empty-weekends notice has consistent text and three visible buttons.
- Fixed two screens that could stay empty: following an advisor tip with a tournament coming up removed the navigation bars, and switching section with a Profile detail open left the Week blank until Esc was pressed.